Where Did May Go?

The school year is rapidly coming to a close and I feel like there are so many end-of-year things to keep track of!  So here's a hodgepodge of the stuff we've been up to...

Our neighborhood is inviting food trucks to come to our pool parking lot every other week!  This is the kind of fun I can get behind (as opposed to their usual bourbon tastings)!  We decided it would be too expensive to bring the entire family every single time, so we're making it a date night with each kid individually, so this was enjoying Martin's Grill with Camille!

Kendra's end-of-year band concert was a lot of fun!  And she got to stand and be recognized since she'd played with both the district and regional bands!

On a Sunday evening when Camille had a cold, I put her to bed early and encouraged the big kids to "play a board game or something" and they actually did!  AND, they even had fun, too!  That made me incredibly happy.

I'm still exercising with FiA three days a week, even if occasionally it ends up just being me and Brandy!  (We're at UVA's rotunda for this one, but they had tents up for graduation.  This turned out to be a good thing, because a bunch of students had come to watch the sunrise from the rotunda, so the tent gave us a little privacy.  I don't like exercising with an audience!)

My neighbor's kousa dogwood had approximately a billion blossoms this spring!  I don't know why it outshone all the other trees, but I sure love walking past it!

Now that the AP test is over, this is the sort of project Bentley's world history teacher has her students doing: making minion versions of historical characters.  Here we have Napoleon.

One of Craig's tires had a slow leak, so after school I took it to Costco to be looked at.  This meant killing time in Costco for an hour or so, so here we are, trying out all the couches!  (It turned out the tire was still under warranty, so getting it patched was free!)

We were at Costco for so long that Craig finished work and joined us.  And then we got hungry and ordered pizza.  And then Bentley was texting me asking when we'd be home with the pizza because he was starving, so I sent him this taunting picture.  Parenting at its finest!

But I know Bentley has forgiven me because he invites me to join him for silly selfies.  I guess this is what bonding with your teenager looks like these days?

And baseball season is in full swing (ha-- get it?), so here's Colton up to bat!  I will be excited when we don't have Saturday morning practice any more, but I guess I shouldn't complain, because in the fall we kept having Saturday morning games, and I felt like I had to stay and watch those.  At least I can just drop the boys off for practice!

The weather this spring has been absolutely bizarre.  It will get really hot, and then cool down and rain for a week.  And then get hot for a couple more days.  It's this sort of whiplash of tearing all the winter blankets off the bed and then wanting to put them back on again.  And the rainy days TOTALLY feel like Seattle to me.  I'm not complaining about any of this, mind you-- it's actually pretty awesome.  But a little weird, too.

And in other, non-photo-worthy, news, work is going well!  I'm on my 3rd draft of closure letters for one of the partners, and hopefully we'll be done soon and I can move on to another partner's closed files.  Last Friday I got a text from Adam informing me that his assistant, Stephanee (who I mentioned in my previous post) would like to cut back her hours and would I like to take over for her?  I've wanted this job for a while (but in a not-trying-to-get-rid-of-Stephanee sort of way), so the answer was a resounding Yes!  Hopefully I can ease into that while Stephanee eases out, and by the time he needs me more, I'll be mostly done at the law firm.  Working for Adam would mean working about 10-15 hours a week, but at home in my pajamas, so that's pretty much my dream job.  I spoke with my neighbor from the law firm and she wasn't sure they'd have a whole lot for me to do once I finish with their closed files (or if they do need me, it would probably be to come in and tidy the files up maybe once a month), so this might just work out well for everyone.  Maybe?  We'll see.  It will take some finagling, but hopefully I can pull this off.

OH!!!  I forgot to ever mention it on this blog, but my PARENTS came to visit back in April!  We had the best time hanging out and walking a lot and eating at my favorite restaurants.  I took very few pictures (as per usual), but before they flew out we did snap a couple pictures just to prove they were here:

You can tell it was bright out, since we're all pretty squinty (and notice my pretty flowering dogwood behind us!)

We asked Ryder to take that top picture, so of course he took a selfie...

Also, THIS has been happening!  😬😬😬

I'm not sure which is worse: sitting in the passenger seat while your teenager drives, or trying to tell him how to drive and realizing you are a terrible driver, OR the fact that this has amped up my backseat driving to such an amazing degree that if Craig and I get divorced, it will probably be because I'm telling him how to drive even MORE now.  (It was even more embarrassing when I did it to Brandy the other day as we drove home from FiA...  Fortunately she also has a teen driver and was very understanding when I apologized!)

Every Weekend, Another Day Trip

So many day trips!  This last Saturday we'd managed to get parking passes for the DC temple open house, so we drove to DC again.  We usually avoid that place like the plague, so this felt like a lot.  If we'd known I'd have a concert the week before, we probably would have chosen a different weekend for this.  The weather was terrible-- very cold and rainy (as opposed to warm and rainy, which would be more normal for May)-- but the temple was dry and warm and we saw a few people we knew from Manassas (Betsy Hayward and Eva Jackson, for those in the know) and it was absolutely delightful.

No one was stopping and offering to take your picture for you in weather like this!

We got to sit in the celestial room all together for quite a while and talk about our goal to all be here in the future.  Neither of Craig nor I have that with the families that raised us, so it's an important goal for our family.  It was so nice being all together there!

I also worked a wedding that weekend (on Friday).  Our new governor was supposed to be giving a toast, but either he didn't make it or that happened at the ceremony, not the reception, because I never saw him.  Oh, well.  I was still glad I got to help out!

When I got to Pippin Hill it was cool and misty, but quite lovely.  By the end of the evening, we were getting reports of a tornado just 8 miles away and things were WILD.  But the wedding was still a blast and we did NOT have to herd everyone down into the basement, so that was a win!

Adam and Becca use their down time to begin stuffing chocolates into boxes for Mother's Day (Adam wouldn't let me help out with this, since I am a mom)

Becca and I holding up the bride's dress (this was #2 of 3!) while Adam is down under in the thick of things trying to get it re-bustled.  It turns out those tiny hooks are extremely hard to find in the midst of all those feathers!  The bride thought she looked like either a peacock or an angel, and grabbed my phone to snap a selfie

Anyway.  After such a busy weekend, and after three weekends in a row of day trips to DC and Philly, we told ourselves we weren't going ANYWHERE the next weekend.  We were, at the very least, going to stay in the state commonwealth of Virginia!

So naturally I woke up from my (very long) Mother's Day nap to an email Craig had forwarded to me announcing that we had been accepted to volunteer at the temple open house on Saturday!  Craig had just written "Ummm..."  We'd signed up to do that months ago before we knew how busy this month was going to be, and when we never heard back, we'd assumed they didn't want us (and, as we often do, had been cracking jokes about not being good enough to volunteer!).  So this was a shock.

But as much as I'd wanted to stay home and have a relaxing weekend, how could I say no to such a cool opportunity???  So we got our trusty babysitters all lined up and brought the big kids with us and spend another day going to DC.  This time we stopped at Cafe Rio in Manassas for a big lunch on our way, and that was excellent.  We also drove by our old house, which was fun.  The new owners are fabulous gardeners and the front yard is bursting with flowers and things that I could never keep alive.  They've also built a huge, very nice privacy fence all around the yard, and it looks like a gazebo in the back yard?  (Hard to see with the, y'know, privacy fence...)

Once we got to the temple, they split us all up into different jobs.  Kendra was stationed at the entrance to the baptistry, putting those little white booties on people's feet before they entered.  Bentley and Ryder were at the main entrance, taking those same booties off as people exited.  Craig was front of the the main parking lot directing traffic, and I worked in the welcoming tent monitoring the metal detectors.  That was actually super interesting-- I had no idea how specific those things could be, and spent a lot of time making sure that whatever set the detectors off was indeed an umbrella or a glasses case and not a gun, and assuring people that if it didn't beep, they did NOT need to stop and open their purse for me!  Everyone was super friendly and smiley and it was so pleasant and happy!  The tent was a little warm and humid, but so much better than the week before, so I was happy.  I also saw my friend Amy Nowak from church with our mutual friend Rachel from my choir (both of whom moved away several years ago), so that was very exciting!  And Danny Harris, who used to be in our ward here but now lives in Lynchburg (his wife Stephanee works for Adam, too) was working near me, so we took this amazing selfie-from-a-distance:

I sent this to Stephanee and Adam

Craig went around and got pictures of us working, but we never got one of him in his cool reflector vest!

"Welcome to the welcoming tent."

The tent was PACKED almost the entire time!

Our shift was supposed to go from 2-10pm, but there was no way we were keeping Ryder out that late, so we collected the kids at 8, snapped a few more pictures, and headed home.  I was slightly disappointed that I hadn't been able to go inside the temple this time, but the kids had gotten to eat their dinner in the basement and feel cool going into the roped off areas, so I'm glad they got that experience.  In fact, the kids were remarkably happy about the whole thing (I was a little nervous to make them do something like this!) and we were all just in the best mood driving home.  It really was a wonderful day, and I was so glad we took this opportunity!  According to a guy Craig was working with, they had around 22,000 visitors that day, including several dignitaries such as the ambassador from France!  (And the forecast for next week is high 90s, so I'm pretty sure I got THE best Saturday to be in that tent!)

They built a new reflecting pool and it's lovely

I like how dusk is falling in this picture

But maybe this weekend we can stay home.  Please?

Working Mom (Sort of)

So Tuesday was my first day at my new job!

The whole thing fell into my lap in the most random way.  Remember how I spent a week watching Zevi in March?  The last day of the week, Rachel got her kids early (as a favor to me, since I hadn't realized when I agreed to babysit that Friday would be a teacher workday (meaning, ironically, that the teachers don't work)).  And then, being even nicer than just getting off work early to save me, she brought me lunch, too, and we hung out eating together, which was delightful.

As we were chatting, I mentioned how I'd applied for that library job and hadn't gotten it.  It's one of my super fun traits that I will spill all my guts about how much I suck.  Rachel immediately asked, "So you're interested in working?" and I told her I was, but (BUT) it's nearly impossible to find a job where you can be home when your kids are home from school.

"Actually," she said, "We've been talking about hiring someone at my law firm part time to get us caught up on our filing.  I thought you'd be perfect for it, but I didn't think you wanted to work."

I assured I would be interested, and the conversation moved on to other topics.  But a few weeks later, she texted asking if she could buy me lunch and talk about this a bit more.  (I told her she is ALWAYS welcome to buy me lunch!)  And, long story short, now I started working for her this week!

Basically, they have a small office that has turned into a messy place to throw files.  The files need to be shipped to storage and closed and there's a whole complicated procedure for doing it right, and the secretary is too busy to do any of that, so she's showing me what to do and I'm trying to learn it all as fast as I can.  Once the room is finished, they figured they'd probably find other stuff for me to do, but if either party feels this isn't working very well, we can easily be finished at that point.  So I can re-evaluate if I really think this is worth the money or not.

It's a very small firm, and everyone has been very nice to me.  It's also all women, and they pride themselves on being family friendly.  Which means no one panicked when I said I might be late because of orthodontist appointments and school buses not running on time my second day of work, so that's nice.  I'm only working two days a week, and only from 9am to 2pm, so it's really not that much time.  And yet-- trying to figure out when to do all the stuff I normally would do while I'm at work is exhausting.  Seriously, how do working moms do all this???  But hopefully I'll get it sorted out!

In the meantime, it's exciting to say I have a job!

It's also a little crazy to compare this to the library position, because it pays way better, is much closer to my house, and has perfectly flexible hours.  So it's basically a thousand times better-- who knew there was a much better job just waiting for me!

Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil

This last weekend was concert weekend, so I've been rather consumed by Rachmaninoff.  Trying to find my note amidst so many other parts (as many as 11 at a time!) while simultaneously keeping up with the Russian text...  is a lot!  And it didn't help that I was usually standing between people who weren't always singing the same part as me.  So the woman on my right would occasionally be singing the Soprano 3 part, and the woman on my left would sometimes be on Alto 1 (or I would be on Alto 1, but she'd be resting), so it was extremely confusing.

But we had our first dress rehearsal in the church with the University Singers on Monday and it was pretty spectacular.  Wednesday was another 3-hour rehearsal and then our first concert was Friday.  We performed at St. Thomas Aquinas on UVA grounds, which was apparently rebuilt just a few years ago.  It has a wonderful dome over the sanctuary which created some fabulous echo-y acoustics and singing there was a dream (but also a director's nightmare, as Michael had to constantly remind us to keep our "s's" as short as possible so the hissing didn't linger too much).

Best of all, we had nearly 1,000 people in the audience, which just made it even better.  There's nothing quite like playing to a full house!  And what made it even better: I had Craig, Tom & Donna, Kendra, and Adam all in the audience cheering me on, and my parents livestreaming it in Seattle!  It's fun to have a big audience and it's best of all if it's a bit personal!  I sure appreciated so much support from My People!

When we ended-- after 15 movements and 2 organ interludes-- the audience just sat there silently for a very long pause until Michael finally took a huge bow and then they erupted in applause.  No one wanted to be the first to clap in case it wasn't actually over (and my friend's sister claimed they were too lost in the music to even realize we'd finished).  It was AWESOME.

I loved the dome!

I'm blinking (of course) but at least you can see me in the middle there!

Saturday was a day to let our vocal cords recover.  Or, if you were me, a chance to review that final movement and make sure I knew it better.  (I also took a 2 hour nap, so apparently the rest of me needed to recover!)

And then we had another concert on Sunday!  This one was at National City Christian Church in the heart of DC.  It was a pain to get there-- we left straight from church, and I'd been up very early making sure everyone had a lunch and a change of clothes in the car when we headed out!  Craig dropped me off (in the pouring rain) and took the kids to the Spy Museum. 

I actually felt better about my own performance at this concert, but we probably only had 200 people in the audience, so it just didn't feel as impressive (even though this church was very old and cool).  

They just don't make fabulous ceilings like this any more!  {Sigh}

Craig and the kids came and got us afterwards (me and my friend Leah) and we all got dinner at Shake Shack before heading home.  It was a really great day, but an exhausting way to spend my rest day!

Giant Connect 4 on the pier!

I handed my phone to Bentley to hold (since I didn't have pockets) and he took this picture and exclaimed, "This is so Inception!"  Goofball.

The really wonderful thing about all this, was that Michael had promised us that we were "climbing the Mt. Everest of music, but the view at the top will make it all worth it" and I have to admit that I was not particularly enamored of this music all year.  But once we finally got to the concert, it was like it all clicked and I just LOVED it.  Michael was absolutely right, and now I want to listen to it all the time.

I'd like to say that now that our concerts are done I can just kick back and relax, but tomorrow is going to be my first day at my new job...!  😬  So stay tuned!

Welcome, London!

I am super late on this post, but on March 27th, my baby sister Rachael, gave birth to her first baby girl!!!  London Christine Aveytua arrived after a mere 1.5 hours of hospital labor (and a few days of very inconsistent contractions) weighing in at a delicate 7 lbs 10 oz.  Seriously, that's two pounds lighter than Camille at birth!!!

She came so easily, she decided she had to create a little bit of drama by letting her oxygen levels dip just enough that the doctors decided to send her to a children's hospital in Akron just to make sure everything was okay.  So she got to ride in an ambulance for a couple hours while mommy and daddy very nervously followed behind (apparently no one thought it was a good idea for Rachael to ride in a bumpy ambulance less than 24 hours postpartum).  Once they could check her out there they decided she was just fine, so that was a huge relief, and she got to go home the next day.  Everyone was very excited to have mommy and daddy and baby home!

She got to come home on her big brother Clayton's second birthday.  He had been less than thrilled about this birthday gift (when he first met her in the hospital, he yelled "Keep her!" while trying to push her away), but Nolan and Harrison seem delighted with their baby sister especially Harrison, who declared, "Clayton has Nolan to watch over him, but I get London!"  And Clayton warmed up to her very quickly after they were all home (and he got a big birthday celebration the next day)!

And we're all just thrilled to have another adorable niece in the family!

And I'm very impressed with Rachael's ability to give her kids themed names that aren't annoying!  Well done, Rocky!

Random April (and March) Stuff

My choir has been hard at work learning Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil for our concert at the end of the month.  I'm getting so much better at sight-reading music and harmonizing below the 1st sopranos and singing in Russian.  And yet, I feel like it's not even close to enough for what this work requires-- I am going to be putting in some serious extra hours very soon.  As Michael put it, "After this, everything will seem easy!"

We participated in a small concert a couple weeks ago at a local winery-- we sang with the University Singers (who will be joining us for the upcoming concert as well, meaning we'll have 160 voices all blending in a church with gorgeous acoustics!).  Charlottesville Ballet also performed, and there were soloists from Charlottesville Opera, so that was pretty awesome.  Unfortunately, it was also FREEZING.  The temperature didn't look too bad if you just checked the weather, but the wind was just cutting through everything.  By the time we walked off the stage, my toes were going numb.  I wanted to stick around and listen to everything else, but the heater in my car (and the promise of pizza at home with my family) was too tempting.

We had a solo dancer during one of our songs, so that was cool, although I wish I could have watched her more!  If only I'd memorized the Russian...

It was a beautiful venue and a beautiful day, if it hadn't been so cold!!!

We had spring break the first week of April.  We weren't doing much, since we'd just gone on our cruise, but I did use the extra time to get Colton an EKG.  All my children seem to have sinus arrhythmia, which sounds scary but is apparently no big deal?  Anyway, my pediatrician wanted Colton's checked out, just to be sure.  It's always so weird for me to do things I'm unfamiliar with, but once the doctor had sent in the order, all we had to do was show up at the hospital and ask for an EKG!  Doesn't that seem like the kind of thing you'd need an appointment for?

But that was exactly how it went!  The only glitch was that the nurse accidentally didn't save the images, so right as we were getting in the car, she called me and asked if I could come back so she could do it once more.  The good thing about that was that I hadn't taken any pictures, so now I had the chance to rectify that.

I sent these pictures to Craig and he wrote back, "Why does everyone want to attach wires to Colton all the time???"  He concluded that he must be a cyborg, which Colton thought was awesome.  (Craig isn't wrong.  This really does seem to be a thing with Colton.) (And yes, the nurse confirmed that Colton has a sinus arrhythmia which is absolutely nothing to worry about.  Whew!  I wasn't particularly worried-- mostly because it's not in my nature to worry too much until I absolutely have to-- but as we were walking into the hospital Colton asked me what would happen if there was something wrong with his heart, and my own heart nearly broke as I realized that just because I was acting like this was no big deal didn't mean that my sensitive little guy hadn't picked up on the fact that it could be a big deal.)

Later in the day, Adam and I took the kids hiking at Walnut Creek!  We didn't take a group photo this time, but I did snap these fun shots:

I think this was my 4th time hiking here so how had I never noticed this totally creepy abandoned house before???  We all agreed it was scary and probably haunted.

These trees grew together and now it looks like the big one is giving the little one a hug!  Awww...!

The eastern redbuds were just starting to bloom, which always makes me happy!

A recent storm had snapped a whole bunch of trees, but it really mangled this one...!  Yipes!

After our hike, we made pizzas with Adam and then watched a movie, so that was a really fun afternoon!

And on a TOTALLY different note, I met up with Sarah for lunch and she happened to have a wig in her car that we needed to try out on me, and we ended up with this amazing picture:

It took Craig a few minutes to even realize that was me! 😂😂😂 And Bentley is telling me I shouldn't post this on my blog because it is too scary.  Sorry to end on this terrifying image!

Fundraising

The church has changed what used to be EFY (Especially For Youth) to a new program called FSY (For the Strength of Youth).  As far as I can tell, it's roughly the same, but much cheaper and they're really trying to get ALL the youth to be able to participate (whereas EFY was expensive enough and often involved traveling to a different state, so really only people who were fairly well off could have afforded it).  Obviously, I am ALL FOR these changes!  And what's even more exciting, our kids will get to attend FSY at William & Mary, so that's just super cool.  

The cost is only $75 per kid, which is insanely cheap for a week, but our ward still decided that it would cover expenses and have the kids do fundraising to pay for it.  If that means more kids can participate AND my kids will have a greater sense of ownership over their time there (or a sense that they had to work to earn it), then that's also great with me.  So all the youth have been working at various people's homes doing yard work to earn money.  Their first day doing this was the day that Bentley broke his arm, so Craig ended up having to bring Camille with him, since we were still at the hospital.  They had Ryder helping using a wood chopper, so I'm very thankful we didn't end up with TWO trips to the ER that day!

Look at that hard-working girl!

(Kendra and Colton had activities at the church, and we were very fortunate that the Herrings were willing to take them and bring them home for us!)

Their next project involved clearing away trees and brush that some people had had cut down and burned, clearing more pasture for their horses.  It was dirty, hard work and I was glad I didn't have to help out!  Craig made Bentley come along thinking he could blow leaves or something, but that ended up not being the case.  But hopefully he gets points for showing up?  And the people bought them all pizza when they were done, so that was nice!

And speaking of making money, I went to work that night at another wedding!  (First I've done in several months-- there aren't many weddings in the winter, and I was usually too busy with our own family stuff to make it to even those few!)  This was the WINDIEST wedding I've ever seen, but luckily enough, the bride's dress moved very beautifully in the wind, so while everyone was very cold, at least the bride looked lovely!  I only bothered taking pictures of this one thing I helped set up which turned out even cuter than I would have guessed:

Seriously, how cute is this???

Unfortunately, I didn't get to eat any.  But I did get a slice of wedding cake (with passionfruit curd-- so delicious!), so I can't complain too much.  And I was doubly delighted when I got paid and realized Adam had given me a raise!  Happy day!

While we were waiting for our dinner, the photo booth guy said we could come and take pictures, since the guests weren't there yet, so we did!  There's Brittany, me and Adam having a blast!

And here's one more day of fundraising, just so you can see that Kendra is also working hard!

Ironically, this is SO MUCH more yard work than we ever make our kids do around our home!